I was looking for hats (unisex, I share with my small sons) and gloves (for small hands).  Cheap, cute, cr@p.  Too thin, too slick, no grips on the palms, too big.  My sons are using the gloves I bought last year - adult stretch knit with rubber grip beads on the palms.  I bought them for me.  They turned out to work for them, although they are large.

But when I look, I see a huge selection of useless stuff.  I was actually over at the Carhartt display drooling over heavy, warm, useful things that are never going to fit me or my kids.  I know I'm supposed to be ecstatic over the latest fashions, but I'm a sucker for anything that actually does the job.  Unfortunately, finding these things is a lot more difficult than I think it should be.

There may be a reason for that.  It snowed a bit and today it is cold and windy.  As I was driving through a shopping center, I saw a woman walking to a store.  Her outfit - a cute beret, a jacket that only came down to her waist and made for looks, not warmth, a pair of tight jeans andhigh boots with three inch heels that made it difficult to walk on anything but smooth, dry surfaces.  No scarf, no gloves.  She looked and acted like she was cold.  

For irony, I once visited Houston, TX for Thanksgiving and saw more people in fur coats in a few days than I ever did years in the frozen north.  

The hats are out of the bag.

Several hours before the final BCS standings of the year were released on Sunday, the Orange Bowl Committee website had merchandise for sale on its official website featuring the Florida Gators vs. the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS title game.

The Orange Bowl Committee, the host of this year's BCS championship game, have dubbed the matchup between Florida and Oklahoma the ''Battle by the Beach,'' according to official merchandise.

The New Deal coalition was a mass movement based on building a more just economic and political order, embracing Protestant evangelicals and Catholic immigrants, segregationists and integrationists, radical left-wingers and unionized working men from the steel belt, all holding their noses with one hand and pulling the lever with the other.

It's important to not sound too partisan but its also important to express pride in the Democratic Party and its ideas.

The article POV is the same as many other articles on the subject of intelligence - insiders complaining about how nobody understands them and everyone is being silly and Brennan is a hero.

The press seems to believe that choosing someone to head national intelligence and the CIA is rocket science, when it's really a matter of making sure we do not promote any of Bush's cronies.  That's not so hard is it?  There's a whole list of people here who are most likely completely acceptable candidates for the two top intel jobs.

I think it's safe to say that during the primaries, not to mention all the years leading up to them, no major political commentator was more vitriolic, sexist, and consumed by CDS than The New York Time's own premier op-ed writer, Frank Rich. It's also safe to say that no major political commentator was more afflicted by "Obama Love" than the same Mr. Frank Rich. And to illustrate that point, immediately after the election, he wrote an op-ed piece so gushing, so fawning and worshipful, that had a twelve year old girl written it for her favorite Hollywood idol, it would have been an embarrassment to live down for years to come.

So, it should come as no surprise to those of us who believe that to become a famous pundit one has to be both shameless and hypocritical. And, in today's column, Frankie baby come through in flying colors.

In a column meant to focus on the economy, he first had to keep his Clinton Hating creds by taking a couple of disjointed shots at Hillary, before going on to denigrate JFK, educated folks, and Obama's judgement.

As the most psychotically, and obsessively addicted Clinton Basher, he decries "our Clinton-fixated political culture," before tossing in, for good measure,  that "Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates were both wrong about the Iraq invasion,....."And this: "Those who fear an outbreak of Clintonian drama in the administration keep warning that Obama has hired a secretary of state he can't fire. If Truman could cashier Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then surely Obama could fire a brand-name cabinet member in the (unlikely) event she goes rogue. ."

As to Obama's judgment in picking his economic team, the man who metaphorically fellated Obama every Sunday for months on end, had this to say:
Lawrence Summers, "famous for never letting anyone forget his brilliance"

Timothy Geithner," boy wonder president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, missing one crucial asset: experience outside academe and government, in the real world of business and finance."

And: "Robert Rubin the Citi may never sleep, but he snored."

Finally, and clueless as to his own  duplicity and hypocrisy, he actually says,  with a straight face, " No doubt the Pavlovian ovations for the Obama team are in part a reaction to our immediate political past."

Rice set the tone for tonight's dinner, the first face-to-face meeting since Clinton's nomination, yesterday on ABC News. 'I think she's going to be terrific,' Rice said. ...

MSNBC via war & piece